A LEGEND HAS PASSED
From The Aden Forecast – December 9, 2015
Our dear friend Richard Russell passed away on Saturday, November 21. He was 91 years old and it came as a sad surprise.
LARGER THAN LIFE
Richard was a person who was larger than life. He was a legend, a pioneer in the newsletter business, highly respected and filled with integrity.
He loved his work and his subscribers. Richard was active right up to the end, still writing his daily comments until days before he passed.
Richard was always very special to us and we’ll truly miss him. For nearly 40 years we’ve been proud to call him our friend and we were big fans even before we met him.
GREAT WRITING
We started reading Dow Theory Letters in 1976 and we loved it. Richard provided his view of the stock market via the Dow Theory method. He also did a lot of research on gold.
Dow Theory Letters was started in 1958. It was the longest investment letter continuously written by the same person and it was an inspiration.
His analysis was fascinating and we learned a great deal from him, not only about the markets but about life.
He often talked about philosophy, his life, family, his days as a bombardier during World War II and so much more. He basically shared his personal journey with his subscribers.
Like many of his subscribers we enjoyed his war stores. Since our late father was also in WWII, these stories hit home. That’s especially true because our father never discussed the war. Perhaps it was too painful, so hearing Richard’s WWII experiences filled a void in our own father’s past we never knew about.
BACK IN 1978
In 1978 we met Richard at an investment conference in the Bahamas. He was a speaker and we were attendees, and we were honored to talk to him at that conference.
When we told him we were market students he encouraged us to keep at it and this continued throughout our career, over the decades.
He was especially helpful when we started The Aden Forecast in the early 1980s. He was always available to give advice, ideas and tips, and we will forever be grateful.
Last year we attended his 90 year birthday party in La Jolla. It was a happy time with friends and family.
FAMILY FIRST
He always loved his family. His kids meant everything to him and he often talked about Daria, Nicole, Betsy, Ryan and Lauren, and his sister Kate.
He was also close to his former wives, especially Connie and Paula. Paula was Richard’s second wife and the mother of Ryan and Lauren. She worked with Richard for 30 years.
This alone says a lot about Richard. They were one big happy family and we were lucky to become friends with his family too.
During his last few years Richard became very spiritual. He was a devout follower of Louise Hay and Emmet Fox. He embraced the philosophy of love and peace, and he passed these words of wisdom on to his subscribers.
Like always, he shared his innermost thoughts. He was open, honest and real, and that’s what everyone loved about him.
Politics, religion, pop culture, global events, jazz, the past and the future... his subscribers knew where he stood on just about everything. And whether they agreed with him or not, they liked hearing his views.
MARKETS: His passion
But the markets were his real passion. As Richard often said... “I’ve spent two-thirds of my life studying and writing about the markets. And I’d say without a doubt the material that has served me best are the books and papers written by the great Dow Theorists -Charles H. Dow, who started the Wall Street Journal in 1889, William P. Hamilton, Robert Rhea and George Schaefer.”
Richard zeroed in on the Dow Theory and this became the basis of his research. Dow Theory is a technical tool that focuses on the primary market trend, or the big picture. It’s also based on market values.
His work came to the attention of Robert Bleiberg, the editor of Barron’s, who published one of Richard’s bullish articles. This created a lot of interest, bringing in hundreds of subscribers, and that’s how Dow Theory Letters was born.
Some years later Richard invented his own Primary Trend Index. This was devised to keep his subscribers on the right side of the major stock market trend. That is, a trend that would generally last at least a year or more.
As you know, we often quoted Richard Russell in these pages. That’s because he was the Dow Theory expert and he had a good track record, identifying some of the biggest moves over the past half century.
In 1958, for example, following his bullish Barron’s article, stocks kept rising until 1966 and he called the top. He advised buying gold stocks in the early 1960s and they surged in the years that followed.
Most impressive, he identified the stock market bottom in 1974 at a time when everyone was scared following its gut wrenching plunge. And he called the stock market top in 1987, prior to the biggest drop in history.
The gold bull market in the early 2000s was another great call. And it was always interesting to talk to Richard about the markets.
THE LAST DAYS
Our last correspondence with Richard was three weeks before he died, and we didn’t know he was sick. He sent us a photo that day and he looked good and happy. (The photo below was taken several years ago in La Jolla.)
We will miss our dear friend very much. In fact, the entire newsletter industry will be mourning the passing of this kind, brilliant, elegant statesman for many years to come.
